He may be an award-winning documentary filmmaker, but PBS icon Ken Burns’ latest project isn’t “independent journalism,” the city says.

City lawyers are asking a judge to reject Burns’ claim of “journalistic privilege” and make him immediately hand over raw footage and outtakes from his new movie on the infamous “Central Park Jogger” rape case.

The five men whose convictions in the 1989 attack were tossed are suing the city for $250 million, and court papers claim that the unused portions of interviews for Burns’ “The Central Park Five” could prove crucial to the city’s defense.

The city subpoenaed what was left on the cutting-room floor earlier this year, but Burns’ production company, Florentine Films, invoked New York’s “shield law” for journalists and the federal “reporter’s privilege.”

The city contends that neither protection applies because the movie doesn’t rely on any confidential sources or materials — and that it doesn’t matter anyway because Burns’ work can’t qualify.

The Manhattan federal court filing charges that plaintiffs Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, Kharey Wise, Raymond Santana and Kevin Richardson “have publicly aligned themselves” with the movie, and that Burns’ real motivation was “to promote [their] interests, and help them obtain a favorable outcome in their lawsuit.”

The city says Burns, along with his daughter, Sarah, and her husband, David McMahon — who helped write, direct and produce the film — have made “numerous public statements that the purpose of this film is to influence the progression of this litigation, to secure an outcome favorable to plaintiffs, and to taint the jury pool.”

“Ken Burns has represented that the theatrical release of ‘The Central Park Five’ is to ‘amplify pressure on the city to settle,’ and that the purpose of the film was ‘first and foremost . . . the settlement of the civil suit,’ ” the city says, citing recent reports in Variety and The Huffington Post.

In addition, the city reveals that Burns “privately attempted to shape the outcome of this litigation” in a 2009 letter to Mayor Bloomberg in which discussed his plans for the film.

“Mr. Burns actually requested that Mayor Bloomberg intervene in the Office of the Corporation Counsel’s handling of the suit, saying: ‘We hope that your influence with the Corporation Counsel could speed along the process of the lawsuit towards settlement and closure,” city lawyers Philip DePaul and Elizabeth Daitz wrote.

Beyond those arguments, the city says the unedited interviews “fall squarely within the definition of relevant evidence” because they could help a jury determine the plaintiffs’ credibility, noting that some of their “prior sworn testimony . . . contrasts with the edited versions of events displayed in the film.”

In a prepared statement, Ken Burns said, “The purpose of this film like all our films is to follow the facts where they lead and truthfully and accurately document this historical chapter.”